Research Project 2 - Hypoxia and anaerobic metabolism regulation of cancer cell survival: a novel molecular target for anticancer therapeutics - K.F. Soliman H. Flores-Rozas, S. Darling and E. Mazzio: In the US, African Americans still continue to experience highest death rates from many different types of cancers. Often times, socioeconomic disadvantage places individuals in a compromising position of not being able to afford proper medical care thereby forgoing necessary early detection and treatment. This poses considerable challenge because a cancer can gain strength over time transforming into aggressive malignancy, which is non-responsive to chemotherapy or radiation. This evolutionary process is believed to be the result of events occurring at the core of a primary solid tumor mass. As a tumor grows, its central core becomes exposed to low p02 (hypoxia) resulting In genetic adaptations which foster expression of a diverse array of proteins that promote survival, growth, metastasis and angiogenesis. A lack of O2 prevents HIF-1 a proteosomal degradation, leading to HIF-1 a-HIF-1B dimerization and its translocation to the nucleus where hypoxic response element (HRE) genes initiate transcription of proteins that perpetuate survival. Because late stage cancers are often untreatable, the understanding of molecular, genetic or functional regulation of glucose metabolism in hypoxic tumor cells are critical in order to elucidate targeted therapeutic treatments that will destroy the tumor without harm to the host.. Our preliminary data show that hypoxic tumor cells use glucose to produce ATP in a process that appears to expand beyond the traditional